Fresh Wax :: Vinyl Saturdays, Minotaur and more (Seattle Weekly)

BREAKING NEWS: The Coalition of Independent Music Stores – the folks behind Record Store Day – are launching a new, monthly program called Vinyl Saturdays.Starting today and happening the third Saturday of every month, Vinyl Saturday will feature a small selection of exclusive, vinyl-only releases from various indie labels. Sorta like a mini-Record Store Day … except NO CDs!!

Want to learn more about it? New vinyl writer Jason Ferguson has more on this and all of this week’s new vinyl releases and reissues that will be a part of this effort to preserve records after the jump.

According to a recent story at Digital Music News about how year-end sales for vinyl in the U.S. could top three million units was this little gem of a quote from an vinyl-friendly label executive: “No one knows if this rally will sustain, so no one wants to invest money in new equipment to ramp up production capacity to meet increasing demand.” In other words, we may have gotten a little too excited a little too quickly, giving this vinyl rebirth several of the hallmarks of a fad.

While you and I wouldn’t equate the glory of an RTI-pressed remaster on 180g vinyl to, say, a Crazy Frog ringtone, there is a bit of uncomfortable reality here; what if all the “kids” who are currently so stoked on vinyl as a format suddenly come to all of the same conclusions that consumers did back in the late ’80s and decide that LPs just aren’t worth the hassle?

But as long as people keep buying records, at the very least on vinyl Saturdays, then hopefully the scenario above is avoidable.

June 16 Releases
Not a whole lot of new releases on wax this week, but the reissue section is heaving with the latest batch of 180g remasters from EMI, which include everything from Megadeth and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (from when they were good … and dumb) to Roxy Music and Plastic Ono Band (the live album that, for years, was a staple of cut-out bins everywhere … go figure).

But the biggest news is the super-limited edition release of Minotaur by the Pixies. The “regular” deluxe edition already includes remastered versions of all of the Pixies’ albums on Blu-ray, DVD and 24K gold CD, wrapped up in a beautiful art-piece box. The limited edition goes further by including a Vaughan Oliver art print, a 72-page hardcover book and … what’s this? All of the Pixies’ albums on 180g vinyl, remastered from the original analog tapes. And hey, it’s only $450. I’ll take three!

New Releases:
AC/DC - Black Ice (yeah, I know the album came out back in October, but this import pressing is its first availability on vinyl)
Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D.
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
Ha Ha Tonka - Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South
Major Lazer - Guns Don’t Kill People … Lazers Do
North Lincoln - Midwestern Blood

Reissues:
Beach Boys - Sunflower, Surf’s Up (180g)
Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Bonnie & Clyde (180g)
Green Day - Nimrod
Merle Haggard - Mama Tried (180g)
Mates of State - All Day (180g)
Megadeth - So Far, So Good…So What (180g)
Plastic Ono Band - Live Peace In Toronto 1969 (180g)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Freaky Styley, Mother’s Milk, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan(180g)
Roxy Music – Country Life , Stranded (180g)
The Specials - s/t (180g)

First appeared June 20, 2009 at Seattle Weekly.com.